Love came, and brought sorrow
Too soon in his train;
Yet so sweet, that to-morrow
"Twould be welcome again.
Were misery's full measure
Poured out to me now,

I would drain it with pleasure,
So the Hebe were thou.

You who call it dishonour
To bow to this flame,

If you've eyes, look but on her,
And blush while you blame.

Hath the pearl less whiteness

Because of its birth?
Hath the violet less brightness
For growing near earth?

No-Man, for his glory,
To history flies;

While Woman's bright story
Is told in her eyes.
While the monarch but traces
Through mortals his line,
Beauty, born of the Graces,
Ranks next to divine!

THEY KNOW NOT MY HEART.

THEY know not my heart, who believe there can be
One stain of this earth in its feelings for thee;
Who think, while I see thee in beauty's young hour,
As pure as the morning's first dew on the flower,
I could harm what I love-as the sun's wanton ray
But smiles on the dewdrop to waste it away!

No-beaming with light as those young features are,
There's a light round thy heart which is lovelier far:
It is not that cheek-'tis the soul dawning clear
Through its innocent blush makes thy beauty so dear-
As the sky we look up to, though glorious and fair,
Is looked up to the more, because heaven is there!

I WISH I WAS BY THAT DIM LAKE.

I WISH I was by that dim lake,'
Where sinful souls their farewells take
Of this vain world, and half-way lie
In Death's cold shadow, ere they die.
There, there, far from thee,

Deceitful world, my home should be-

1 These verses are meant to allude to that ancient haunt of superstition called Patrick's Purgatory. In the midst of these gloomy regions of Donnegall (says Dr. Campbell) lay a fake, which was to become the mystic theatre of this fabled and intermediate state. In the lake were several islands; but one of them was dignified with that called the Mouth of Purgatory, which during the dark & es attracted the notice

of all Christendom, and was the resort of penitents and pilgrims from almost every country in Europe.

'It was,' as the same writer tells us, 'one of the most dismal and dreary spots in the North almost inaccessible, through deep glens and rugged mountains, frightful with impending rocks, and the hollow murmurs of the western winds in dark caverns, peopled only with such

Filled with this fear, I flew and caught
That fading image to my heart-
And cried, "Oh Love! is this thy doom?
Oh light of youth's resplendent day!
Must ye then lose your golden bloom,
And thus like sunshine die away?

SING-SING-MUSIC WAS GIVEN.

SING-sing-Music was given

To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
Souls here, like planets in heaven,

By harmony's laws alone are kept moving.
Beauty may boast of her eyes and her cheeks,
But love from the lips his true archery wings;
And she who but feathers the dart when she speaks,
At once sends it home to the heart when she sings,.
Then sing-sing-Music was given

To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
Souls here, like planets in heaven,

By harmony's laws alone are kept moving.

When Love, rocked by his mother,

Lay sleeping as calm as slumber could make him, 'Hush, hush,' said Venus, 'no other

Sweet voice but his own is worthy to wake him.' Dreaming of music he slumbered the while,

Till faint from his lips a soft melody broke,
And Venus, enchanted, looked on with a smile,
While Love to his own sweet singing awoke!
Then sing-sing-music was given
To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
Souls here, like planets in heaven
By harmony's laws alone are kept moving.

CORRUPTION, AND INTOLERANCE.

TWO POEMS:

ADDRESSED TO AN ENGLISHMAN BY AN IRISHMAN.

1808.

PREFACE.

THE practice which has been lately introduced into literature, of writing very long notes upon very indifferent verses, appears to me rather a happy invention; as it supplies us with a mode of turning dull poetry to account, and as horses too heavy for the saddle may yet serve well enough to draw lumber, so poems of this kind make excellent beasts of burden, and will bear notes, though they may not bear reading. Besides, the comments in such cases are so little under the necessity of paying any servile deference to the text, that they may even adopt that Socratic dogma, Quod supra nos nihil ad nos.'

In the first of the two following Poems, I have ventured to speak of the Revolution of 1688 in language which has sometimes been employed by Tory writers, and which is therefore neither very new nor popular. But however an Englishman might be reproached with ingratitude, for depreciating the merits and results of a measure, which he is taught to regard as the source of his liberties-however ungrateful it might appear in Alderman B-rch to question for a moment the purity of that glorious era, to which he is indebted for the seasoning of so many orations-yet an Irishman, who has none of these obligations to acknowledge; to whose country the Revolution brought nothing but injury and insult, and who recollects that the book of Molyneux was burned, by order of William's Whig Parliament, for daring to extend to unfortunate Ireland those principles on which the Revolution was professedly founded—an Irishman may be allowed to criticise freely the measures of that period, without exposing himself either to the imputation of ingratitude, or to the suspicion of being influenced by any Popish remains of Jacobitism. No nation, it is true, was ever blessed with a more golden opportunity of establishing and securing its liberties for ever than the conjuncture of Eighty-eight presented to the people of Great Britain. But the disgraceful reigns of Charles and James had weakened and degraded the national character. The bold notions of popular right, which had arisen out of the struggles between Charles the First and his Parliament, were gradually supplanted by those slavish doctrines for which Lord H-kesb-ry eulogizes the churchmen of that period; and as the Refor mation had happened too soon for the purity of religion, so the Revolution came too late for the spirit of liberty. Its advantages accordingly were for the most part specious and transitory, while the evils which it entailed are still felt and still increasing. By rendering unnecessary the frequent exercise of Prerogative,